Page:Origin of the Anglo-Saxon Race.djvu/375

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Settlements in the South-Western Counties.
361

Frisian settler. Similarly, the names Brocheland and Godescote probably denote a family of the Brocmen or Boructers and of Goths. Galmentone points to British people, Danescome to Danes, and Essemundehord[1] possibly to one or more Eastmen. There are also names in the Exon Domesday which point to the settlement in Devonshire of other Danish allies from some of the tribal people of the Baltic. Weringehorda and Wereingeurda appear to be named after one or more families of Warings, and the place-name Wedreriga, which is found in the same record, similarly denotes people from the Wedermark—i.e., Ostrogoths from the east of Lake Wetter in Sweden. The Anglo-Saxon Curi names in Somerset—Curi and Curesrigt, and Curylond, and Curymele, as well as others of the same kind in Cornwall, derived, apparently, from settlers’ names, are peculiar among English place-names, and may reasonably be connected with the Curones or Curlanders, who were allies of Danes and Northmen[2] in some of their wars, and may have had representatives among Danish settlers in England.

The earliest settlements of Devonshire and Cornwall were probably all formed from the sea. In this they differed from Somerset, where the parts adjoining to Wilts and Dorset most likely received their earliest permanent colonists from the Wilsætas and Thornsætas of Wilts and Dorset. The Devonshire settlements began on the coast like the earlier ones of Kent, Sussex, and Wessex. It is no doubt owing to this that the Devon people along the south coast and banks of the navigable rivers are of fairer complexion at the present time than the people of the interior.[3]

Of all the south-western counties, Devonshire and Cornwall afford perhaps the best example of the blending of the Teutonic and Celtic races. Herefordshire and Shropshire afford similar examples on the border of Wales. The old Cornish people differed from the Welsh in being

  1. Dom. Bk., Index.
  2. Saxo Grammaticus.
  3. Beddoe, J., loc. cit., p. 49.